How to check a trading journal is legit and safe

A journal asks for your trade history and sometimes your account. Here is a checklist for any tool, applied honestly to ours, including where we fall short.

Why check at all

A trading journal asks for something valuable: your trade history, and sometimes access to your account. It is reasonable to check before you hand that over. The checklist below works for any journal, including ours. We apply it to AI Trading Journal at the end, including where it comes up short.

The checklist

Check	What good looks like	Red flag
What access does it need?	Read-only access to history, nothing that can trade	Asks for a trading password, or permission to place orders
Does it need your broker login?	Prefer methods that need none, or only a read-only investor password you can rotate	Asks for your main password
Where does your data go?	Clearly stated: your device, your own account, or named servers	Vague wording about data use
Who makes it?	A named developer or company with a real website and contact route	No name, no contact, no history
How is it priced?	Clear price, clear refund and cancellation terms	Hidden fees or auto-renewal that is hard to cancel
Can you leave with your data?	Export, or the data already lives in an account you own	Your history is locked in
Is there a trial?	A free trial or demo so you can test on a demo account	Pay first, no way to try
What do independent users say?	Recent, specific reviews on sites the vendor does not control	Only testimonials on the vendor's own site
Where is it distributed?	From the vendor's own site or an official store	Random download sites or file-sharing links

Test on a demo account first

Whatever tool you choose, connect it to a demo MT5 account before your live one. Check that it records trades correctly, matches MT5's History tab, and never asks for more access than it says. Then switch to your live account.

Protect yourself either way

Use a unique, strong password for every trading and journaling account, and turn on two-step verification where offered.
If a tool asks for an MT5 investor (read-only) password, keep it separate from your master password and change it if you stop using the tool.
Never share your master trading password with a journal.
Read what a free Expert Advisor is allowed to do before you attach it to a chart.

Applying the checklist to AI Trading Journal

Check	AI Trading Journal
Access	Read-only. It reads your closed trades and never places, changes or closes a trade
Broker login	None. It reads the MT5 terminal already logged in on your PC
Where your data goes	To your own journal on your PC; to your own Notion workspace, with your own token, only if you connect it. Trades do not pass through our servers. Licensing checks use a key and a device ID
Who makes it	An independent developer, Wajid Farooq; see the about page
Price	7-day free trial, then $19.99 once, or 19.99 USDT. No subscription. One computer at a time
Leaving	Your journal stays in a file on your PC
Trial	Full app free for 7 days, no card required

Where we come up short

We are a new product made by one developer, so there is a short track record and few independent reviews yet.
We have not had an independent security audit.
Notion is a cloud service; your trades sit on Notion's servers in your own account. We remove the extra middleman, not the cloud.
Windows and MetaTrader 5 only.

Because we say so plainly, you can decide for yourself. Test the free trial on a demo account first. For the privacy detail and how methods compare, see automated trading journal: how it works and what to look for and the Windows app page.

This page is general information, not trading or investment advice, and not a review of any other company.

A ten-minute test you can run on any journal

Find the company or developer. Look for a name, a contact route and an about page. If you cannot find one in two minutes, treat that as information.
Read the privacy page. Find the sentences that say what data is collected and where it goes. Vague wording is a warning sign.
Read the pricing and cancellation terms. Look for auto-renewal, hidden fees and how a refund works.
Check what access it requests at setup. If a step asks for a trading password, stop.
Search for independent reviews on sites the vendor does not control, and read the recent ones, especially the critical ones.
Run it on a demo account. Compare its numbers with the MT5 History tab.
Try to export your data before you pay.

How to read reviews

Signal	What it suggests
Specific reviews that mention features, problems and how support responded	Real users
Many reviews with similar wording posted close together	Possibly solicited or fake
Only perfect scores and no detail	Treat with caution
A few critical reviews with a vendor reply that addresses them	A vendor that listens
Reviews only on the vendor's own site	Not independent

A new product will have few reviews, and we have said so about ours. The absence of reviews is not proof of a problem, but it means you should lean harder on the other checks, particularly the demo-account test.

Things a vendor cannot prove for you

That nothing will ever go wrong. Every online service has some risk.
That their security is perfect. An independent audit helps, and its absence is worth noting, as we do for ours.
That they will exist in five years. One-time purchases and data kept in your own account reduce the damage if a vendor disappears.

Your own hygiene matters as much as theirs

Use a unique, strong password for Notion and turn on two-step verification.
Treat your Notion integration token like a password. If you think it has leaked, delete the integration and create a new one.
Share only the page the journal needs with the integration.
Do not reuse the password of your trading account anywhere else.
Keep Windows and MetaTrader 5 up to date, and download MT5 only from your broker or MetaQuotes.

If you are choosing between tools, the trading analytics software guide has a scorecard, and the automated trading journal page explains the methods and their privacy trade-offs.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if a trading journal is legit?

Check what access it needs, whether it wants your broker login, where your data goes, who makes it, how it is priced and whether you can try it free on a demo account.

Is it safe to give a journal my MT5 investor password?

An investor password is read-only, but it is still a credential. Prefer tools that need none, keep it separate from your master password, and change it if you stop using the tool.

Should I test a trading journal on a demo account?

Yes. Connect it to a demo MT5 account first and confirm it matches the History tab and asks for nothing extra.

Is AI Trading Journal safe?

It is read-only, needs no broker login and keeps your trades on your own PC, not on our servers. It is also new and unaudited, so test it on a demo account first.

Related guides

Test it safely: 7 days free, on a demo account

Free for 7 days, no card required. After that, a one-time $19.99 purchase. No subscription. Also on the Microsoft Store.

One-time $19.99, no monthly fee · your MT5 login never leaves your PC · trades go into your own journal on your PC, not through our servers.

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